The Beauty of the Cosmos

Colour composite image of Centaurus A, revealing the lobes and jets emanating from the active galaxy’s central black hole. This is a composite of images obtained with three instruments, operating at very different wavelengths. The 870-micron submillimetre data, from LABOCA on APEX, are shown in orange. X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in blue. Visible light data from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope located at La Silla, Chile, show the background stars and the galaxy’s characteristic dust lane in close to "true colour". Credit: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)

The Cassini spacecraft observed three of Saturn's moons set against the darkened night side of the planet in this image from April 2011.

Saturn is present on the left this image but is too dark to see. Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) is closest to Cassini here and appears largest at the center of the image. Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) is to the right of Rhea. Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across) is to the left of Rhea, and is partly obscured by Saturn.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Credit:NASA

Multiple images of the International Space Station flying over the Houston area have been combined into one composite image to show the progress of the station as it crossed the face of the moon in the early evening of Jan. 4. The station, with six astronauts and cosmonauts currently aboard, was flying in an orbit at 390.8 kilometers (242.8 miles). The space station can be seen in the night sky with the naked eye and a pair of field binoculars may reveal some detail of the structural shape of the spacecraft. Station sightings in the area will be possible again (weather permitting) Friday, Jan. 6, beginning at 6:11 p.m. CST. Viewing should be possible for approximately six minutes as the station moves from 10 degrees above west-northwest to 10 degrees above south-southeast. The maximum elevation will be 44 degrees. To find sighting details by city, visit: http://go.usa.gov/81R. Equipment used by the NASA photographer, operating from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, was as follows: Nikon D3S, 600mm lens and 2x converter, Heavy Duty Bogen Tripod with sandbag and a trigger cable to minimize camera shake. The camera settings were as follows: 1/1600 @ f/8, ISO 2500 on High Continuous Burst. Photo credit: NASA